Method and System for Unified Searching and Incremental Searching Across and Within Multiple Documents

ABSTRACT

A user-interface system and method for searching among multiple documents and searching for subsections within individual documents using a single search interface on an input-constrained user device having a screen and a keypad.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/867,384, filed Apr. 22, 2013, entitled Method and System for UnifiedSearching and Incremental Searching Across and Within MultipleDocuments, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/657,429, filed Oct. 22, 2012, entitled Method and System for UnifiedSearching and Incremental Searching Across and Within MultipleDocuments, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,429,158, which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 12/126,409 filed on May 23, 2008, entitledMethod and System for Unified Searching and Incremental Searching Acrossand Within Multiple Documents, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,296,294, which claimsthe benefit of U.S. Provisional Application 60/940,136, filed on May 25,2007, the contents of each of which are incorporated by referenceherein.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to user interfaces for searching andbrowsing and, more specifically, to user interfaces for searching withina document and across multiple documents.

DISCUSSION OF RELATED ART

Currently, searching within a document and searching across documentsrequires two separate interfaces. Users typically search acrossdocuments using either a search engine, such as Google or a sitespecific search (such as Wikipedia search, Amazon search, etc.). Userstypically search within a document using the functionality provided byweb browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. There has not been agreat need from a usability standpoint to combine these two interfaces,particularly on desktop or laptop computers, because they have enoughscreen space to display both at the same time, a full QWERTY keypad, andeasy random access to any point on the screen using a mouse/touch padinterface. The need to display all matches for an input search term isaddressed by Google (via a browser add-in) by highlighting the searchmatches in a document (see FIG. 1)—the user then must visually identifythe right section of the document by looking for the highlighted matchedlocations (which may require the user to scroll through the document).

This approach works well on devices with large displays, but on displayconstrained devices, the user must expend considerable effort tonavigate through pages to find the matches. The Firefox browser's findinterface (see prior Art II) reduces the effort to find the matches bynavigating to each match sequentially with the touch of an interfacebutton (“Next”). However, the matches can span across pages, making thenavigation process cumbersome. The context information surrounding thematch in some cases can be more than a page of information, which, inmost cases, is too much information to visually scan quickly. This isparticularly true on display constrained devices, where a “page” ofinformation is a relatively small amount of text.

To summarize, a common approach of the various search interfaces (e.g.web sites such as Google, Amazon, US Patent Office, and browsers such asFirefox browser, Internet Explorer, etc.), for handling searches withina document and across a document is separating the text input interfacesfor searching across the document and for searching within the document.The former is typically done using a search engine or a web site and thelatter using a browser search interface applied to the downloadeddocument. Furthermore, the process of searching within a document istypically a sequential traversal of “within document” matches withsurrounding context information associated with each match being theactual document content itself. These interface approaches, while theymay be convenient for personal computer devices with large screens andfull, unambiguous keyboards, are highly cumbersome on mobile andtelevision-like devices that are input and/or display constrained.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention provides user-interface methods and systems for searchingamong multiple documents and searching for subsections within individualdocuments using a single searching interface on an input-constraineduser device having a screen and a keypad, the method comprisingdisplaying a text input component, receiving a set of query terms insaid text input component, receiving, responsive to the received queryterms, a set of document bookmarks and a set of document pointersreferring to documents within a widely-distributed computer network,allowing the user to select from among these document bookmarks andpointers, and displaying the selected document beginning at a pointwithin said document, if a document bookmark is selected, or at thebeginning of the document, if a document pointer is selected.

Under another aspect of the invention, the document bookmarks aregenerated by retrieving the contents of the document and inferring itsstructure.

Under another aspect of the invention, the document bookmarks relate todocuments that have been previously selected by the user.

Under another aspect of the invention, the document bookmarks aregenerated by retrieving the contents of the document and inferring itsstructure, after the user has selected said document.

Under another aspect of the invention, indicators are displayed adjacentto the displayed document pointers, in order to distinguish thedisplayed document pointers from the displayed document bookmarks.

Under another aspect of the invention, the keypad of the device may bean overloaded keypad that produced ambiguous text input.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of various embodiments of the presentinvention, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken inconnection with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a screenshot of a prior art interface.

FIG. 2 is a screenshot of a prior art interface.

FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment of a search system where a search isdone on a network system and results are returned to a client device.

FIG. 4 illustrates an interface for searching and displaying results.

FIG. 5 illustrates the results matching user input and the documentsthat are being linked to by the result.

FIG. 6 illustrates a display of all matches within a document and asubsequent incremental search within the context of a selected document.

FIG. 7 illustrates a portion of a selected document presented inresponse to a search within the document; it also illustrates a userchoosing another result from a previously presented results list.

FIG. 8 is a diagram that depicts a client device, according to certainembodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present invention provide a unified interface thatenables a user to search across multiple documents and within aparticular document using a single search query input. The interfaceenables the user to identify possible documents of interest as well asspecific sections within those identified documents that are relevant tothe user's query input. The interface enables a user to maintain andrefine query information as the user moves among searching fordocuments, searching within a selected document, and viewing the contentof the documents. The unified interface operates on an “index”associated with a document, described below, in order to present themost relevant sections of multiple documents in a small display area.Thus, the interface is particularly beneficial to a user of adisplay-constrained device in the sense that it enables the user toquickly identify sections of interest in various documents.

As used herein, the term “index” is intended to represent anyorganization of the contents of a document. The index on which theinterface operates can be created, for example, by the document author,by another individual, or by a separate document indexing step orprocess. The index can be a separate entity or can be incorporated inthe document itself. For example, an index could simply be headings of adocument, or an index could be named anchors within an HTML document.This indexing can be performed in advance, or on-the-fly during thesearch process. The document may be of any type: standard techniques maybe used to parse plain text and HTML documents, and there are many toolsthat permit on-the-fly extraction of data from binary files inproprietary formats (e.g., Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, etc.).

FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment of the system using the techniquesdisclosed herein for performing searches using a wide range of devices.A server farm [301] can serve as the source of search data (units ofsearch data are known as documents) and relevance updates with a network[302] functioning as the distribution framework. The distributionframework may be a combination of wired and wireless connections.Examples of possible networks include cable television networks,satellite television networks, IP-based networks (including IPtelevision networks), wireless CDMA and GSM networks. The search devicescould have a wide range of interface capabilities, such as a hand-helddevice [303] (e.g., a phone or PDA) with a limited display size and areduced keypad with overloaded keys, a television [304 a] coupled with aremote control device [304 b] having an overloaded keypad, and aPersonal Computer (PC) [305] with a reduced keyboard and a computerdisplay. According to another embodiment of the invention, the searchhappens locally on the device and results are rendered locally on theuser interface.

FIG. 4 illustrates a visual presentation of a user interface forperforming a search within a document and across documents. Thisinterface can use a variety of search engines, including those known inthe art. The interface [401] has a text input portion [402] foraccepting user search input characters that constitute the input query.The input method could employ a QWERTY style keypad or a keypad withoverloaded keys (i.e., a keypad in which multiple characters and/ornumerals are assigned to a single key). The interface can be used withincremental search techniques, in which results are retrieved as eachcharacter is typed. Techniques for selecting a set of results responsiveto the user's query include, but are not limited to, those disclosed inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/235,928, entitled Method and SystemFor Processing Ambiguous, Multi-Term Search Queries, filed Sep. 27,2005, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/136,261, entitled Method andSystem For Performing Searches For Television Content Using Reduced TextInput, filed May 24, 2005, and U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/246,432, entitled Method and System For Incremental Search WithReduced Text Entry Where The Relevance of Results is a DynamicallyComputed Function of User Input Search String Character Count, filedOct. 7, 2005, all of which are herein incorporated by reference.However, an incremental search method is not required, as the interfacecan be used with queries comprising full complete terms, which aredispatched with an explicit send action. The results section [403]presents the results returned from the search engine employed.

For example, when the user enters an incremental search input query“dopam” [404], a search engine connected to the interface [401] returnsa set of results [405] matching “dopamine”. These results [405] arepresented in results section [403]. As described in the applicationsincorporated above, results can be selected based on descriptive termsand/or metadata associated with the documents.

FIG. 5 illustrates an expanded representation of the results presentedin FIG. 4 for the search query “dopam”. Each of the rows in the set ofresults [403] points to a different document (documents [501-505])matching the term “dopamine”. In this example, document [501] isincluded in the result set because it has been indexed under the subjectof dopamine. While the other documents [502-505] are indexed undersubjects other than dopamine, dopamine is a term included in thesedocuments' metadata; thus, these documents are also returned in responseto the search. The figure also depicts a listing [510] of the varioussections of the document [501], organized according to the indexinformation associated with the document [501].

Referring to FIG. 4, when the user selects a result [406], whichcorresponds to a particular document [501, FIG. 5], the interface liststhe sections [510] of the document [501] that are relevant to the searchquery term “dopam”, which, as explained above, matches the term“dopamine”.

FIG. 6 illustrates this listing [600], in which results are presented ina content display portion [601]. In this listing, the user query in textinput portion [602] is changed to “dopamine” to reflect the currentdocument's subject as indicated by the document's index. This clearlyindicates to the user that the user is now viewing content associatedwith a document having the subject dopamine (i.e., it indicates that theuser is within the dopamine context).

Screens 600, 610, and 620 of FIG. 6 illustrate how the unified interfaceenables the user to search for, select, and view desired sections of adocument discovered as described above. When the user navigates to the“biochemistry” section [511] (which is highlighted in the figure) of thedocument [501], the user can optionally activate a preview feature onthe interface device to expand the row dedicated to the biochemistry ofdopamine in order to view additional content associated with thebiochemistry section of the document [501]. Aspects of this optionalmetadata expansion feature are described in U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 60/940,182, entitled Method and System for Search withReduced Physical Interaction Requirements, filed on May 25, 2007 andincorporated by reference herein.

In this example, the user finds the biochemistry section to be ofinterest. Thus, the user acts on one of an array of selectable actions[604] to retrieve and view the contents of the biochemistry section ofthe document [501]. The interface responds by presenting the contents ofthe document, starting at the biochemistry section [601], in place ofthe results list portion of the screen. Meanwhile, because the user isstill within the same overall document [501], the context has notchanged, and thus the text input portion [602] remains set to“dopamine”.

The user is then able to read the portion of the document [501]describing the biochemistry of dopamine. Because the interface haspresented the entire contents of the document, the user is able toscroll within the document to review other sections of that document. Inaddition, the interface enables the user to initiate a new search,starting with the context of the current document, namely, the“dopamine” context. Referring to screen [620] of FIG. 6, upon the userbeginning to enter additional query text, the interface places the newentry into text input portion [602] along with the existing search term“dopamine” provided by the document context. Thus, the combined querywould be “dopamine parkin” The interface would then replace the documentcontents in content display portion [601] with a set of search resultsthat are relevant to the new combined search query. Had the user deletedthe term “dopamine” and begun entering a new term, the interface wouldquery only the search space outside the current document.

In the illustration, the user has entered “parkin”, to represent“Parkinson's disease”, as an additional search criterion. The interfaceadds this search term to text input portion [602] and submits the queryto the search engine. Again, as described above, this query can be anincremental query.

The search engine searches both the current document [501], as well asthe search space outside the current document. Thus, the result set forthe new combined query presented in the content display portion [601]includes links to sections of the current document [501] as well aslinks to new documents. The interface can optionally provide anindication [606] to shown which results are external to the currentdocument. In screen [620], the result “Disorders (Parkinson's)” does nothave the indication [606] because it is linked to a section of thedocument [501] that is relevant to the combined query. By automaticallygetting results that do not belong to the current document and listingthem after the results in the current document, it enables the user toget to his desired result faster.

Upon the user selecting the result [607], “Disorders (Parkinson's)”, theinterface presents the contents of the document [501], starting at the“Disorders (Parkinson's)” section, as described above in connection withthe biochemistry section. This is illustrated in screen 700 of FIG. 7,in which the content of the document in presented in a content displayportion [701]. After reading the portion of the document, the useractivates a browse-back function to return to the previous results list,shown in screen 710. This screen retains the previous combination query“dopamine parkin” in the text input portion [702], which corresponds tothe text input portion [602] of screen 620 of FIG. 6.

From this screen [710], the user may select an external result [703],“Parkinson's disease”, which corresponds to document 503 of FIG. 5. Uponpresenting the content of the document [503] in the content displayportion [701] of the screen [720], the interface also changes the textinput portion [702] to “Parkinson's” because the document has beenindexed under the subject of Parkinson's. In this example, the interfacepresents the contents of the new document [503] directly, without firstdisplaying a result set of the various sections of the document (as theinterface had done for the previous document [501]). The factorsinfluencing whether the interface presents the document content directlyor presents a result set of sections of the document that match thequery text may include (1) the availability of an index of the document,(2) the size and length of the document, (3) the number of sections ofthe document, and (4) whether the search query terms match the termscontained in the indexed subject of the document. For example, theinterface may present the document content directly if an index ofsections is not available, if the number of sections is relativelysmall, or if the document content itself is short.

As for the fourth criterion above, if the user had searched for“Parkinson's” (or an incremental entry that matches “Parkinson's”)outside of any document context, the interface would have returned a setof results that included links to documents 501 and 503 because thesedocuments contain content relevant to Parkinson's. However, because theindexed subject for document 501 is “dopamine” rather “Parkinson's”, theentries in the result set for document 501 would link to the sectionswithin the document that match the “Parkinson's” query term. However,because the indexed subject for document 503 and the query term match(i.e. both contain “Parkinson's”) the entry in the result set fordocument 503 would link directly to the content of that document.Documents are preferably indexed under only one subject. However, insystems where documents are indexed under a number of subjects, thecontent of the document will be directly linked if the search termsmatch any of the subjects associated with the document.

FIG. 8 is a diagram that depicts the various components of a userdevice, according to certain embodiments of the invention. The userdevice communicates with the user via a display [801] and a keyboard[804]. This keyboard may be an overloaded keyboard that producesambiguous text input. Computation is performed using a processor [802]that stores temporary information in a volatile memory store [803] andpersistent data in a persistent memory store [806]. Either or both ofthese memory stores may hold the computer instructions for the processorto perform the logic described above. The device is operable to connectto a remote system using a remote connectivity module [805].

Thus, implementations of the invention enable the reordering of sectionsof documents in a way that presents the information most relevant to thesearch query in an easily accessible manner. Documents whose indexedsubjects do not match the query terms, but have sections within themthat do match the query terms, are represented so as to enable the userto link directly to the relevant material without having to scan throughless relevant sections. As mentioned above, these aspects areparticularly helpful when implemented on display constrained devices, onwhich scanning through large amounts of information is particularlyburdensome.

To summarize, embodiments of the present invention provide for a singleuser interface that enables the user to search across and withindocuments. The matches within a document are presented in the samemanner as those results of searches across multiple documents. Thisunified interface enables the user to quickly identify matches within adocument for a query and select it. Furthermore, the interfaceseamlessly enables the user to switch between searching within adocument and searching across documents simply by clearing the documentcontext displayed in the text input portion of the interface.

It will be appreciated that the scope of the present invention is notlimited to the above-described embodiments, but rather is defined by theappended claims; and that these claims will encompass modifications ofand improvements to what has been described.

What is claimed is: 1-16. (canceled)
 17. A method for searching media,the method comprising: receiving a first search query; receiving userselection of a first query result generated based on the first searchquery; setting, responsive to the user selection, a query contextassociated with the selected first query result; and in response toreceiving a second search query, generating for display a second queryresult based on the second search query and the query context.
 18. Themethod of claim 17, further comprising receiving a set of document indexsection indicators responsive to the received first search query,wherein each document index section indicator specifically identifies apoint within an associated document.
 19. The method of claim 18, furthercomprising generating for display a document index section indicator ofthe set of document index section indicators as the first query result.20. The method of claim 19, further comprising generating for display,in response to receiving the user selection of the document indexsection indicator, the associated document beginning at the identifiedpoint.
 21. The method of claim 18, wherein the received set of documentindex section indicators point to documents that have been previouslyselected by the user.
 22. The method of claim 17, further comprising:receiving a set of document pointers responsive to the received firstsearch query, wherein each document pointer specifically identifies adocument; and generating for display a document pointer of the set ofdocument pointers as the first query result.
 23. The method of claim 22,further comprising generating for display an identified documentcorresponding to the first query result selected by the user.
 24. Themethod of claim 17, further comprising generating for display the querycontext prior to receiving the second search query.
 25. The method ofclaim 17, wherein the query context is the first query result.
 26. Themethod of claim 17, wherein the first search query and the second searchquery are received from an overloaded keyboard.
 27. A system forsearching media, the system comprising: processing circuitry configuredto: receive a first search query; receive user selection of a firstquery result; and receive a second search query; generate the firstquery result based on the first search query; set a query contextassociated with the selected first query result responsive to receivingthe user selection; and display circuitry configured to generate fordisplay a second query result based on the second search query and thequery context in response to the user input circuitry receiving thesecond search query.
 28. The system of claim 27, wherein the processingcircuitry is further configured to receive a set of document indexsection indicators responsive to the received first search query,wherein each document index section indicator specifically identifies apoint within an associated document.
 29. The system of claim 28, whereinthe processing circuitry is further configured to generate for display adocument index section indicator of the set of document index sectionindicators as the first query result.
 30. The system of claim 29,wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to generate fordisplay, in response to receiving the user selection of the documentindex section indicator, the associated document beginning at theidentified point.
 31. The system of claim 28, wherein the received setof document index section indicators point to documents that have beenpreviously selected by the user.
 32. The system of claim 27, wherein theprocessing circuitry is further configured to receive a set of documentpointers responsive to the received first search query, wherein eachdocument pointer specifically identifies a document, and wherein theprocessing circuitry is further configured to generate for display adocument pointer of the set of document pointers as the first queryresult.
 33. The system of claim 32, wherein the processing circuitry isfurther configured to generate for display an identified documentcorresponding to the first query result selected by the user.
 34. Thesystem of claim 27, wherein the processing circuitry is furtherconfigured to generate for display the query context prior to receivingthe second search query.
 35. The system of claim 27, wherein the querycontext is the first query result.
 36. The system of claim 27, whereinthe processing circuitry is further configured to receive the firstsearch query and the second search query from an overloaded keyboard.